Arizona State Museum

The Arizona State Museum is located on the campus of the University of Arizona in Tucson. I had quickly walked around the museum on a previous visit to Tucson but enjoyed the museum at a leisurely pace this time - particularly the exhibit about the various tribes of Arizona from before the Europeans came to today….listening to the languages, enjoying the art (old and new) on display, and hearing about what happened to each of the cultures. There were some positive events but the overwhelming theme was the struggle of the tribes to survive the barrage of horrible things that happened as the Europeans came west. Sitting in the pottery room was a way to recover from the tour of that part of the museum. I find the designs and curves of the pots to be relaxing; pots also appeal because they are functional art. It is easy to imagine the potters all through history while looking at the collection the museum has displayed. The collection of sandals was the last of my photographs at the museum. The sandals on display are all old - found by archeologists. I noted that a lot of people in Tucson wear modern flip flops that look very similar.

Ten Days of Little Celebrations - June 2013

Back in August 2012, I posted about finding something to celebrate each day. It’s an easy thing for me to do and the habit of writing it down reminds me to be grateful for these and a myriad of other things in my life. This month has been full of ‘little celebrations’ so I have one for each day up to today rather than the usual 10 for the month! 

1. Enjoying a book by a new author. I read a lot of books; the thrilled of finding an author that is new - or new to me - never seems to wane. It’s a lot like finding an unexpected treasure…and gets even better if the author has written other similar books.
2. Reading in a comfy chair by a window as it rains. The combination of natural light, the sound of rain, a good book, and a comfortable chair - it’s the convergence of things that make the moment special.
3. A calm day before the flurry of travel. Before the packing day…celebrating the calm before the bustle begins. It’s a little too soon to be worried about anything. The day can be savored as the contrast of what is to come.
4. Brookside Gardens. It is a place to celebrate at least monthly. Like all gardens, it changes with every visit. My post from that visit is here.
5. Ready to travel. Through all the trepidation of packing - wondering if everything would fit in the allotted luggage, making sure each back would meet the needs of the travel stages - and then it is done. It all fits. The boarding pass is printed. There is a small list to remember to pack right before heading to the airport. Everything is organized.
6. Arrival - forgetting only one (non-critical) item. Everything went exactly according to plan and the only item I forgot was a snack for the plane. It was left carefully packaged in the refrigerator. I noticed it almost immediately when I got to the gate and was able to purchase some almonds before boarding the plane so was not starving when I got off….and everything else was perfect. Arriving at a destination is always worth a celebration!
7. Sisters dinner. There are four of us - together for over 50 years and still enjoying each other. Our perspectives of growing up in the same household and divergences as adults are sources for almost endless conversation - and it is almost always over food. We ignored calorie counting for the evening.
8. Frontier Texas! in Abilene TX. This museum was a pleasant surprise. I’ll be posting about it eventually. It is new enough to present different perspectives of time period rather than just the traditional ‘Cowboy and Indian’ (masculine) stories.
9. White Sands National Monument. I have a post about this in the next few days. We didn’t rent saucers to slide down the dunes (I’ll wait for a time when I travel with a child for that) but did walk out on the sand barefoot. The whiteness of the sand reflects the heat enough that it is not hot like the tan colored sands.
10. Tucson Sunset. Experiencing the sunset on the first day in a new location is a celebration of a beginning - at the end of the first day with the brilliant colors of day fading to the blues and purples of evening. I’ll do a post about the Tucson sunset next week.
11. Madera Canyon. I posted about Madera Canyon already (here). The trek set the tone for the rest of time in Tucson: do as much as possible in the morning when it is coolest, enjoy the birds, take the easier hikes so everyone in the group can easily keep up, take plenty of pictures.
12. Sunrise and the Saguaro National Park (east). I’ve already posted about the sunrise here - and since we were already up - we took in the National Park as well. I’ll be posted about it in the next few weeks. It is going to take quite a while to work through the blog worthy items from June 2013.
13. The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. There is a post coming up for the June visit. I’ve posted about the March 2013 visit (Plants and Birds and Seahorses) previously.
14. Tucson Botanical Garden. A garden in the city that includes large seedless grapefruit trees! There were also artichokes in bloom when we were there. There  is a blog post in development about it.
15. A daughter. What a joy it is to have a daughter than has grown into herself so gracefully! I always think that the current year is the very best of our shared lives….it’s been that way for more than 20 years!
16. Storm in the Davis Mountains. I was not celebrating while we were driving through it - curvy road, towering black thunderheads, pounding rain of very large drops or slushy hail. But we drove on - unscathed - and, in retrospect, the interplay of weather and terrain was quite awesome. Some of the clouds are shown in the Road Trip post from yesterday.
17. Clark Gardens Botanical Park. After a convoluted drive on country roads to find it - we quickly decided it was a place to enjoy and plan a return visit in another season. There will be an upcoming post on our June visit.
18. Back to the Dallas area. It was good to get off the road. We all celebrated not having to go anywhere at all for a day.
19. Home Again. The plane flight was as expected and I savored the quiet of home…for an evening.
20. Day at home. All through the day I celebrated that I had at least 24 hours before guests would arrive. It didn’t matter that I needed to do cleaning or make sure the sheets in the guess bedroom were fresh. It was very good to be home again.
21. Catching up. All the email and news feeds and laundry and mail….the little things that stack up when one is away from home and/or too busy. I celebrated that I got everything caught up except the news feeds before guests arrived.
22. Butterflies. The butterfly display is in full swing at Brookside Gardens conservatory. Even single butterflies are often worth celebrating; this display is almost overwhelming in that regard! I experimented with some video. One turned out particularly well and I may include it in my upcoming post.
23. Mount Vernon. In recent years, I’ve only gone when guests have requested…and enjoy it every time. There have been a lot of changes. The most recent is the addition of a theater with special effects (vibrating seats and snow falling) to dramatize events of the Revolutionary War. The place is definitely worth celebrating. I’ll eventually take a look at the pictures from the day a post about the visit.
24. Time to take naps. I don’t normally nap but June finally wore me out. Fortunately - it happened on a day I could take a nap in the morning….and another in the afternoon!
25. Anticipating getting back to normal. I am finally looking at some weeks without travel or external plans. The mundane activities of grocery shopping and mopping the kitchen floor are quite appealing.
26. Catching up - again. I am working off the items in inboxes and news feeds…even finishing up some Coursera work. It is thrilling to mark off items and realize that I can probably stay caught up….until the next time I have a series of days like ‘June 2013.’

June 2013 Road Trip

My road trip a few weeks ago took me from Dallas TX to Tucson AZ. The route went through Dallas - Fort Worth - Weatherford - Abilene - Midland - Pecos - El Paso - Las Cruces - Tucson…and back. On the way out we made a side trips into Abilene for the Frontier Texas exhibit and from Las Cruces to White Sands National Monument. On the way back we stopped at Clark Gardens near Weatherford. I have some future posts about those places. This post is about the scenes from the road.

It turns out that the pictures from Tucson back were the better ones - so the slide show below starts in Tucson and includes the scenes from the road in the three states. All three states have increased decoration of bridge abutments and overpasses along their interstates in recent years. They emphasize architecture, natural features and colors of the area. I captured some of the more unusual ones. El Paso seemed to have the most extensive and the most elaborate - in muted colors that seemed to fit the environment of El Paso.

The clouds were also noticeable. Their thickness built up in the afternoon of our first day of driving from Tucson. We had quite a rainstorm about an hour past El Paso. At first we thought we might be able to drive from underneath the big cloud…but it was as speedy as we were. The speed limit in that stretch is 80 mph but we slowed down in the deluge.

All three states have rest stops…many of them quite scenic. And they had picnic tables with shade - and situated to catch the breeze; we enjoyed picnic lunches even in the June heat. The welcome centers are even more elaborate. I took a picture of the sign and the doors of the one in New Mexico. The Texas rest stops included mosaics on the walls….and photogenic insects because they are so ‘open.’ As we got closer to Dallas we managed to take the route through Weatherford rather than return to the highway after our stop at Clark Gardens - so I got a picture of the center of town while we were stopped at a light. From there it was Fort Worth and Dallas traffic…not photogenic. We were all glad to get out of the car and stretch!

Madera Canyon

Madera Canyon is about 30 miles south of Tucson and 30 miles north of Nogales in the Santa Rita Mountains. It is in the Coronado National Forest - a pleasant addition of trees to the cactus and scrub of the Sonoran Desert. We took an easy hike and ate a picnic - with almost no one else around - when we visited Tucson a few weeks ago. There was no water in Madera Creek; nonetheless, the birds were plentiful as we had anticipated. They were so quick that we didn’t get many pictures until we stopped at a gift shop and found benches overlooking bird feeders. It was a great finale to the outing. 

Doves of Tucson

This time of year the doves (clade Columbidae) are enjoying the ripening fruit of the Saguaro cactus. Their muted colors contrast with the cactus - providing a desert color scheme with the white of the blooms, the red of the fruits and the dull green of the accordion folds of the trunk. When they are not perched on a Saguaro, they are on a roof ridgeline or getting a drink at some water source (the rocks at the edge of the swimming pool that the quail enjoyed were also favorites with the doves). The birds are so numerous that they are probably the most easily photographed of all the birds in the area.

Enjoy the slide show featuring the doves of Tucson below.

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 22, 2013

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

If bees go extinct, this is what your supermarket will look like - Lots of fruits and veggies would go away too.

Take a Virtual Tour Of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park - Time lapse sunrise…lava flows…ocean...steam.

Photos Of NYC's Subway Project - Lots of tunneling through rock.

Most Solar-Friendly States — 2013 State Solar Policy Rankings - Maryland is near the top! Arkansas and Oklahoma are at the bottom.

Breastfeeding Boosts Babies’ Brain Growth - Yet another reason babies should be breastfed.

Life in the Potholes of Canyonlands National Park - A short video about the small creatures that live their lives after rain fills the rock basins.

As Data Floods In, Massive Open Online Courses Evolve - I have enjoyed the Coursera offerings. My use of online classes is evolving too! I no longer feel compelled to do every aspect of the course; I am free to do just do the parts that meet the objectives I have for myself.

Beautifully Exotic Looking Species of Moths from Ottawa - There are some surprises in this photographic series. Which one do you like best? The white one (5th one from the top) is my favorite.

Roman Seawater Concrete Holds the Secret to Cutting Carbon Emissions - Making cement with less lime and requiring much less heat

Don’t Take Your Vitamins - An thought provoking opinion piece - particularly if you are assuming that more is better when it comes to vitamin supplements. 

Gila Monster

The big excitement on our last afternoon in Tucson, Arizona was the first monsoon rain of the season and the large gila monster that emerged from the rocks beside the pool of our rental house. It was relatively still at first, looking like a strangely patterned stuffed toy. Then it moved. It leaned over to get a drink from the pool while the camera was retrieved. It posed for a picture and then sauntered off to its den.

We had been in the house for a week and enjoying the area around the pool without noticing the hole just under one of the poolside rocks. I’m glad we finally saw the gila monster and relieved that it did not come out unexpectedly while someone was standing right beside its burrow! I supposed it was good that the pool was nearby since the Wikipedia entry says that sometimes the only way to get them to release was they bite it to submerge them in water. 

Arizona Sunrise - June 2013

Getting up for an Arizona sunrise in June is for early risers. We did it twice the week we were in Tucson. The first morning was the best because there were a few clouds to provide the canvas for the colors of the sunrise. The saguaro cactus that looks that a Gumby with a wild headdress and round nose provides a sync point for the sequence of photographs below. There is a cactus wren - in silhouette - on top of the tallest branch in the last picture.

I’ll post some morning light photos in a few days. The first hour after sunrise is the best for outdoor photography. 

Brookside Gardens - June 2013

Brookside Gardens in June: lush greenery of ferns, azaleas and rhododendron mostly over as are the peonies, the lotus are still just leaves, the southern magnolias have buds, the foxglove grow up a hillside, the hibiscus and angel trumpet have been moved outside, the papyrus fills a high corner of the conservatory.

My favorite find of the day was some hollyhocks. I remember them blooming near the side porch of a great aunt - so I thought of her today.

Enjoy the Brookside slideshow for June 2013!

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 15, 2013

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Exploding Glass (Prince Rupert’s Drop) - Video

Feds issue guidelines for self-driving cars like Google's - Speeding up the advent of self-driving cars?

The City and the Sea - A survey of the landscape and politics of New York, post-Sandy - Analysis of what was discovered about New York due to Hurricane Sandy

Essential Friends + Gateways: Take A Long, Slow, Ride Along The Natchez Trace - This is something I’ve been thinking about doing for the past few years. This post has some good references when I get serious about actually taking the drive!

Here's what Pangea looks like mapped with modern political borders - A visualization to understand the first continent…and where the pieces are today.

WWII Drug: The German Granddaddy of Crystal Meth - It was used to keep pilots and soldiers alert

Butterflies tell UT climatologist about climate - An interview with Camille Parmesan

Nutritional Weaklings in the Supermarket - More color often means higher nutritional content

The Physics of Ferocious Funnels - Several visualizations to explain how tornados form and the historical tracks of tornados in the US.

Best Diets Overall - From US News and World Report

World Life Expectancy - Data presented mostly on maps. There is a portion of the site for USA Health Rankings.

Fish Oil - Info page from NIH

Blue Zones - Lessons learned from people who’ve lived the longest

Around our (Maryland) Yard in June 2013

The irises have bloomed profusely and the chives have gone to seed by early in June. The pyranantha has tiny green berries that will be brilliant orange by fall.

The dahlias and lilies are very green; at least the lilies have a few buds that the deer have missed. Hopefully there is enough other greenery now for the lily buds to go unnoticed and July will be a riot of color in the front flower beds - yellow and orange and red.

There are tiny bits of color in the sea of green - a wild strawberry and overly sweet smelling flowers on one of our bushes. The bees were finding the white flowers very attractive!

The big surprise of the walk around the yard this month was the turtle shell with a big hole that was in the backyard. There were bones rattling around on the inside but the soft parts were long gone. There was a turtle that put in an appearance in our back garden several times a season for at least the past 10 years or so; the empty shell probably means that the turtle continuity for our garden has ended.

2013 Dogwoods

Dogwoods are one of my favorite trees. I like the way they move in the understory of a forest. The branches seem to float in the air currents during the summer. The leaves turn red early in the fall. In the winter the branches look fragile. Come spring the white or light pink flowers are among the largest of the spring blooms. Their green centers mature to reddish orange seeds by fall. This is my 2013 posts celebrating dogwoods.

I first became familiar with dogwoods about 30 years ago when we moved to the east coast. We had one that grew under the oaks in our backyard, leaning over the patio. They are not fast growing trees; that one may have been older than the house. We have moved several times since then and now my favorite place for dogwoods is the Brighton Dam Azalea Garden in Maryland.

I thought I might be too late to capture the dogwoods and the azaleas when I finally found time to get over the garden on May 15th. Fortunately for me, the weather was cooler than usual in late April and early May. The white dogwoods were already past their prime but the pink tinted ones were still very beautiful. Enjoy the slide show of dogwoods in spring below!

My 2012 dogwood post is here.

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 8, 2013

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Chameleon eye - A colorful and informative ‘image of the day’ from The Scientist

City Lights - An article from The Architects Newspaper about light in urban design. Appealing but counter to the idea that dark skies are nice too.

Do your hair and fingernails grow after death? - The short answer is ‘no’ but there may be a reason they appear to

Slow Motion Hummingbirds - Video of hummingbirds at a feeder

Costa Rica's Self-Sustaining Tree House Community - A community of tree houses complete with indoor plumbing and zip lines

Bees in the bush working hard! - Photos of insects coming to a wildflower south of Nairobi (hint: more than bees) from National Geographic

Mapping the Great Indoors - A microbiologist/ecologist looks at what is growing inside an ordinary house.

Finger Knitting ….and Tents - Reminds me of day camp projects from many years ago.

Real animals that you didn’t know existed - How many of these have you heard about before?

What’s so Great About a World Flight Paths Map? - Comments about a visualization by Michael Markieta (showing the visualization too)

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week #43 - My favorite in this batch is the very first one. The bright pink of the flowers and the yellow of the bird really stand out.

Huntington Beach

The vacation in South Carolina was coming to an end when we walked around Huntington Beach State Park in late April. It was the last day before we all headed for home. The park has a beach (obvious from its name) but also includes a boardwalk over the swamp and pine woods. Each one of the areas has something to offer.

It was too cool to wiggle our toes in the water but we picked up shells and I enjoyed the seaweed that was drying out on the beach. There were browns and reds and green. I liked this bit of green on the sand.

From the boardwalk we saw many birds. The egrets were the most common and I’ve posted a lot about them recently so I’ll include two different ones in this post. The robust looking Double Crested Cormorant was surveying the swamp from a piling.

The green heron was on the boardwalk and the supports for it. Green herons are shape shifters. The neck contracts and expands - changing the bird’s look dramatically.

In the woods, we heard a woodpecker and, after some searching, found it working on a dead pine tree. It is a red-bellied woodpecker.There must have been many insects in the tree because it was focused on a relatively small area of the tree for quite some time - allowing for picture taking.

Charles Towne Landing

Charles Towne Landing State Historic Site is across the Ashley River from Charleston. I visited in late April and just realized I had not posted about the place. It is the earliest colonial settlement in what is now South Carolina - started in 1670. There are exhibits in the museum and from archeological digs throughout the site that help visualize what it was like. There is a replica of a 17th century sailing ship to tour as well.

There is a statue of a Native American situated in the trees. How strange they must have thought the colonists coming in ships and taking command of the land.

The camellias were near the end of their season but a few bushes still had blooms.

Looking out over the marshy land - the Ravenel Bridge is visible in the distance and pelicans are seen frequently.

The place is wild enough to still have raccoons under the trees.

It had been dry enough the few days before we were there for some of the resurrection fern growing on the oaks to be withered (top image) but other limbs still had green fern - allowing for comparison.

This is a place to walk and absorb the history of the place while savoring the outdoors of South Carolina in the spring before it gets too hot.

Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge

Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge was pretty cool and breezy the day we were there in mid-May on our way to Chincoteague. The new visitor center is under construction - and evidently has been for years. The birds were still plentiful and seemed to pose for pictures.

There was a pair of barn swallows that had built their nest in the bird-watching blind. It took us a few minutes to realize that they were trying to get us away from their nest by chattering and glaring at us from just outside the entrance to the blind.

A great blue heron walked in the shallows - unperturbed by our picture taking although he did walk sedately up onto the sandbar farther away from us eventually.

The mallards were preening. It took patience to get them both with their heads in a photogenic position.

We saw bald eagles that were too far away, or moving too fast, to photograph but we managed to notice an immature eagle within range. Blackwater was the first place I saw a Bald Eagle in the wild (over 20 years ago) and it is reassuring that the population of the birds has continued to thrive and increase over those years.

And last but not least there was an osprey nest with a little drama while we watched. We heard the bird on the nest calling and then saw two other birds nearby. The calls brought the mate to the nest and screeching ensued between all four birds with the one on the nest never moving out of position and mate standing just beside. The intruders left and the mate flew away. All calm again at the osprey nest.

Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge

I’ve posted already about the vultures and egrets at Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge and the sunset/sunrise at the Assateague Island National Seashore. This post is a collection of other aspects of the place that I photographed on our visit in May.

There were ducklings that suddenly appeared from behind a clump of grass with the momma and proceeded to bathe in the water. Some of the ripples in the picture above are actually more ducklings that have temporarily submerged! Hours later it occurred to me that it would have been an excellent time to try testing out the video function in my camera.

There is a new visitor center at the refuge. The skylights are on top of chimney like structures. They provide light to the inside but not direct sunlight. Good design.

Does everyone that goes to the beach take at least one bird picture like this one to the left?

We didn’t seen any of the famous Chincoteague ponies in the refuge but there were two mares with colts in the corral next to our inn that were available for adoption. These ponies did not seem as scruffy as I remembered from previous visits when we had seen them in the marsh.

The light house was being renovated but we walked around to see it through the trees. I managed to use the zoom to take a close up of the top with the cables attached to support the renovation work.

On the way back to the car from the lighthouse - trying to walk faster than the mosquitoes and midges - I managed to notice and photograph a frog beside the path. It seems like 9:00 AM was the wake up time for the insects and nothing deterred them!

Bay Bridge Crossing the Chesapeake Bay

The Bay Bridge (William Preston Lane Jr. Memorial Bridge) crosses the Chesapeake Bay via 2 spans that are over 4 miles long. It is full of hefty metal compared to the newer Ravenel Bridge that I posted about after my trip to South Carolina. What a difference 40 years makes! 

I took pictures from the vantage point of Sandy Point State Park on the western side of the bridge and then as we drove across the bridge going to (east span) and coming back (west span) from Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge. It was a misty and cool day on the eastward journey. The pictures from Sandy Point (the first three in the slide show), captured the mood of the day. There is still some morning color penetrating the moisture in the air. On the way back, the day was sunny.  

Pieces of Shell

Back in April, I picked up shells while watching the sun come up at Surfside Beach, South Carolina. I posted about the sunrise but am just getting around to photographing the shells. Even broken shells attract attention.

Their ridges in gentle, fanning curves

The smooth surfaces worn by water and sand

The bumps where sea urchin spines once anchored

The spirals that have broken open

And some that are still tight.

All of these shells will find a new home around plants in a pot - souvenirs from a spring day at the beach.

Egrets at Chincoteague

In the early morning, egrets gathered in the shallows at Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge. The gathering was quite close to a place we could park and we were thrilled that they ignored the noise we made getting out of the car. There were two different kinds. The Great White Egrets are the ones that look calm and sedate in the picture above. They are larger and have yellow beaks. Do you see the two of them in the image?

The other birds are snowy egrets. They have black beaks and yellow or red near the eye. The red is the breeding coloration. They were anything but sedate. The squabbles went on and one with lots of fluffed feathers and then some calming seconds to find a snack or strike a pose. Their feathers often look punkish during breeding season.

The Great White Egrets were more focused on food. They generally ignored the Snowy Egret ruckus but sometimes would be forced to move out of the way. My husband caught two sequences (back and front) of the birds landing after a short flight. The pictures show the wings turning up at the end and the way the wings fold as they are landing - with one last flap before finally settling.